La Vie Est Belle
by ItsALifesJourney
Summary: She cries when she hears his voice for the first time in five years. /Paris, Therapy, Loss, Revelations, Life/ ::Post S17 :: One Shot ::


**This is my take on S17 as from what I've heard and briefly observed and what I think should happen after the finale. Enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think. x**

* * *

 **La Vie Est Belle**

He'd invited her to Paris.

She scoffs, wonders why she ever considered it.

 _Noah._

She'd thought of him, had pictured the little boy smiling and raising his hands in the air as she watched the golden lights of the Eiffel tower glimmer in his eyes.

And that had been the proof she had needed that she was doing okay.

Or so she's going to believe.

But the end of that dream, the one that had her sitting up in bed in a rush, causing perspiration to slither down her temples, had happened before.

"Why do _you_ think you had this dream?"

Lindstrom's voice is like sandpaper to her eardrums and she scrunches her eyes before meeting the man's gaze.

"I don't know."

"Maybe you do."

Taking a deep breath, she adjusts herself on the small sofa inside the dainty therapist's office.

The cold air, the dank walls, the faint smell of sandalwood and the iridescent color of 70's sea foam green, register in her mind as she tries to find an appropriate retort.

"Maybe…." She starts, then stops. "I'm projecting?"

She doesn't know why a vivid encounter would originate with the man.

The man who'd followed her around like a shadow, who'd gone out of his way to find any discrepancies to put in her jacket, who was eager to put her in jail, who'd found it empowering to use her assaults against her and then who was suddenly happy to pretend he wasn't one of the biggest nuisances in her entire career as a police officer.

She'd been able to fall into a blank space in time. He'd been there for Dodd's funeral. He'd been surprisingly there for Amaro. He'd even told her to take the Lieutenant's exam. He's even asked her to have drinks.

But he was still Ed Tucker.

The one who made her skin crawl by just the click of his heel as he entered the squad room.

And there was the fact that she'd also concocted a _similar_ dream like this once involving the man sitting in front of her.

After Lewis, she'd dreamed of kissing the psychiatrist and then the indefinable criminal had appeared behind him in the vision and she'd shot up in bed in a way similar to the occurrence this morning.

"Perhaps, but I'll tell you what I think," Lindstrom interjects into her thoughts.

She steels herself from the oncoming truth.

"I think you're superimposing him into a role in your mind because he's that factor that's always been there, whether it be a positive or negative factor."

Swallowing, she swipes her hand through her hair and leans back against the sofa, stretching her arm across the back, her legs crossed and her lip tight between her teeth.

"I think you're in shock to an extent as well, the trauma of a colleague's death can cause an emotional topple just as well as your own personal trauma could have."

"Yes, but…."

"Yes but…. You deserve that peace of mind, like I mentioned before today. You have every right to feel relief being alive. Your mind isn't at ease and therefore, it's causing an unpredictable behavior pattern to take over your thoughts, or perhaps your dreams. It doesn't particularly mean anything, not if you don't want them to."

Shaking her head, "No, and that's what I don't get. With you, it obviously meant nothing. And in this dream last night, when I kissed...it felt okay but I feel it was just a face."

"Precisely. After Lewis, I was just a face. It wasn't a valid, conscious thing and it sounds like this was similar."

Nodding, Olivia, looks down at her jean clad thighs before looking up at the man across from her.

"I agreed though."

Turning his head, and raising his brow, he inquires, "Agreed?"

"Tucker asked me to go to Paris, in my dream, and he told me that he trusted me. And I didn't bat a lash, I agreed. To both."

"I can't offer concrete insight on what you were thinking, only that I have a vague inkling it's something you've wanted, yet something that never seemed attainable, and then it was there and for a moment, you didn't process or care, that it was _his_ face."

Sighing, "Yeah," because there was no way, she'd have agreed or let him pretend that she was the one who needed trusting if she were awake.

"I think I'm going to take some time off, I need to give myself space from that precinct and everyone. I'm going to spend time with Noah, take him away and then I'll see if anything's changed."

In her book of lies, it was the perfect antidote.

"I'd recommend taking time to yourself after any stressful, potentially traumatizing experience. And as I said, losing a colleague falls under that category."

She flinches at the irony. Losing a colleague can not only stress you out, tear your insides apart or rip your heart out, it can pretty much destroy your psyche to an extent.

She's been trying to find her balance for a while now on that score, long before Dodd's passing.

Sitting up, she runs her hands down her thighs, thinking the session is winding down, when Lindstrom's voice startles her.

"How long has it been since you've contacted someone you can confide in? Aside from me of course."

Laughing under her breath, she turns her head and stares at the window, though its shades are drawn low to the sill.

How long had it been?

A lot longer than she's ever really allowed herself to notice.

"I don't have any immediate family. I have a half-brother who's in New Jersey and we've lost contact again. It's been five years since I saw him or my niece.'

"Well, how about staying a few days with a friend. Get out of the city, plan a week of events for you and your son."

She sits quietly in place, contemplating the word _friend_ being tossed loosely in the air. Friends. A close one. She thumbs through her list of "friends' in her mind and it hits her harshly.

She doesn't have a close friend. Not one. And not for her lack of trying to build a social life, there has just never been any instances or times it could have ever prospered.

There's Amaro in California, but they've never had that type of friendship, aside from him sleeping over when he had nowhere else to go. They were 9 to 5 friends.

She'd never want to impose on his life like that awkward older sister who needs a place to stay.

And she hasn't spoken to Casey in years, nor Alex, and neither of them had been friends to an extent that passed beyond having a drink here or there and most of the time one or all of them bailed on the plans before they ever came to fruition.

She thinks about Melinda, Barba, and so on and they're all working.

She'd lost contact with her college roommates even longer ago. Her old mentor, Karen Smythe, is retired and probably on a long gone cruise similar to the one she vaguely knows Cragen is on, by now.

She closes her eyes, immediately resenting herself for still thinking of _him_ next.

She'd given up on him five years ago to the week.

She surely doesn't have Elliot anymore. So who does that leave?

Scoffing again, she stands up and places her hand in her back pockets, and paces across the suede carpet.

"I can figure it out on my own."

Lindstrom immediately chimes back with, "It doesn't make you weak asking for help."

Nodding, she reaches for her purse on the arm of the couch and looks over her shoulder as she responds, "Thanks for the session. I'll see you when I get back."

Lindstrom purses his lips helplessly but nods in acceptance and watches her leave the office.

She feels his eyes on her back the whole way down the hall and into the elevator. She even swears she can feel him watching her from the second story window as she slides into the driver's seat of the sedan.

She'll always have Paris, but this lingering uncertainty and false sense of familiarity is something she can live without.

She'll take some of Lindstrom's advice though, she's leaving with Noah tonight.

However, she's banking on it being a one way ticket to wherever they go.

… …. …

She's not sure why Dodds's death was the catalyst for all of this.

Perhaps she'll never know and that's okay. It's one of those unexplainable instances that turn out to be the best thing to happen despite the irony.

She talked to Fin yesterday.

After much push, and lots of avoidance on his end, he'd finally taken the Sergeant's exam.

He passed and is currently running the department until another higher up can come in and fill the position, much like she had.

She's proud of him. There's no one else she'd want handling business there in the nine months since she left.

The first second she'd lost sight of who she was, she knew time was dwindling. She just wondered what her condition would be if she came out on the other side. Now she knew.

Personal and professional mistakes aside, she wouldn't possibly trade those years on the force for anything though.

She takes them as a lesson on how to find ones self in the midst of chaos and a reminder to focus on life instead of breathing solely for SVU.

In fact, since leaving the precinct and all the memories there behind, she'd ended a different drought in her life.

Allentown, Pennsylvania isn't far from Simon's new address in Trenton.

She'd postmarked a few pictures of her and Noah from her new address in Pennsylvania, and he's had his former girlfriend send a few of Olivia.

Olivia is seven years old now and was eager to meet her adoptive cousin once she knew of him.

And not only did the cousins finally meet, but, she'd also finally picked up the phone and dialed Elliot's old house in Queens again.

Something in hearing her brothers voice again and seeing her niece, pushed something much more _intense_ inside of her.

When she'd finally called Elliot's house a few days after the cousin playdate, a young woman had picked up and Olivia's heart dropped, not recognizing the voice at all, and she berated herself for waiting too long to contact him again.

The young woman told her that the Stabler family no longer resided there and that she's an old friend of Maureen's.

She got Elliot's number from the girl and also found out from her that Kathy's in Queens living with Eli and Kathleen, that she and Elliot had put the house for sale to pay for Elizabeth's college tuition, the rest are all on their own, and…. Elliot lives in Brooklyn.

… …. ….

She cries as she hears his voice for the first time.

It's late in the evening, pushing 9 p.m. and she's sitting in the corner of her sofa, as she listens to his voice on the line for the first time in five years.

His timbre is haggard and it sounds like he groans in discomfort every few minutes but he assures her he's fine.

How is she? And she deflects his questioning each time.

So, then he explains that he's not blind to his absence the last five years. That he's been gone for four of them. Gone, out of the country with little time to himself.

She doesn't understand but he says he'll explain more if she wants to have lunch one day.

He'll bring Eli and maybe, if she wants this, she can bring her _son_ so they can meet. Give them an opportunity to be the spectators and not the sole reason for the meeting.

She's not sure how he knows about Noah but the thought of him meeting him, does something to her internally.

She tells him _maybe._ That she needs to process everything first.

… …. …

A month later, it's late March, and she falters one day while folding Noah's clothes in the living room, remembering the quiet yet monumental phone call she'd had with Elliot.

She dials his new number and decides, if she can _agree_ to Paris, she can agree to this.

She's tired of waiting for other people to make choices, she's tired of letting her life go by with regrets and desires.

It's not an easy decision for her though, she'd spent nearly a month deliberating whether his explanations would be good enough and she still doesn't know.

... ... ...

Noah's playing on the jungle gym a few yards away when she sees a young sandy blond haired boy running toward the same jungle gym.

She watches him and the hair stands up on the back of her neck, it's as if time stands still when he slows down to say hello to Noah who's just as curious about his presence as the other child is of him.

The age difference doesn't seem to bother either of them as they both latch onto the piece of playground equipment and continue to play.

She drags her eyes away and moments later, she sees out of the corner of her eye the tall, solid build she would know anywhere, coming toward her, except she's not familiar with the non-so subtle limp he's sporting.

She feels the pressure build in her eyes, the sob clog in the back of her throat as she watches him approach her, still a good twenty yards away.

She tells herself she's ready for this. She's been ready for this for 1,825 days.

She wills the tightness in her throat to ebb, but watching him limp closer and closer, the cane in his hand not the distraction she wishes it was, she fails miserably.

She tries to smile, but she's sure it comes off more of a closed mouth purse of the lips and her eyes get blurrier with each step he takes.

It doesn't take long though for the moment to elapse into action and she's on her feet, and he's only inches away. She can smell him and he stops, leans his weight on the cane with one hand and wipes his brow nervously with the other.

Nodding, unsure of why, she takes a step closer and tries not to reach out first.

He turns his head away and then turns back, searches her face, his own bottom lip trembling. He still doesn't reach for her then, but he stares her in the eyes, searching for something seemingly familiar from so long ago.

She closes her eyes after a moment, nods, and then does brave a simple touch of his arm, leading him to the bench.

… … …

An hour passes, and he eventually finds enough ground with her to explain a little the details surrounding the last five years of his life.

He maps out that he'd been helping with disaster relief in different parts of the world.

It had started off simply enough with short flights throughout the United States, but then once word got out that he was not only a United State Marine Corp Veteran, but a former NYPD detective, he'd been drafted….sort of.

It was for a new program through the Marines. An old recruiter that he'd gone to Desert Storm with, had called him up one day and asked if he was interested in guiding new recruits through disaster areas as a training exercise for them.

He'd accepted. At the time, he'd felt as if he had nothing left for him in New York. He felt like a failure. Not only as a cop, a father, but as a human being.

He'd been certain at the time that Olivia was disappointed in him and when he'd gotten the call, he'd let her go. He'd let his family down as well and they didn't deserve him wallowing at home in the midst of a career breakdown so he let them go too.

And he left.

She watches him closely, listening to him speak of tales she'll never know firsthand, her heart thrumming as he continues and holding on to the fact he's here, that maybe her anger and confusion will subside completely once he's finished.

His first job was with Hurricane Sandy relief. He'd stayed close for her he says. He'd then been sent off further away sooner than he'd planned though, not long after he'd mailed her some things.

He'd intended to do more, to explain once he got his head on straight, but a few short months later, he was on a plane headed to Oklahoma.

Later that year when he got situated back in his apartment, he'd gotten another call. They needed more bodies overseas with a new assignment.

On December 8, 2012 he'd landed in the Philippines to help provide humanitarian assistance and disaster support in dealing with the after effects of Typhoon Pablo as part of the Marine Expeditionary Force.

And then from May of 2013 to September 2014, he hadn't seen New York at all and was virtually as unreachable as he would have been if he'd been deployed. Oklahoma again. Arizona. Mexico. Washington State. California.

And already being a veteran and then working that hard and that consistently at his age, he'd had a hard time getting used to the toll it took on his body, far more than he'd had to deal with as a cop.

Then in early June of 2015, he'd fallen down a steep hill full of rocks and debris in Northeast Texas during the bad flooding. He'd crushed his hip in the fall and had needed surgery immediately.

A year later and he's still feeling the after effects.

He had six months of physical therapy and he'll need more, and he'll need a cane from now on but he seems to be doing well, he can still walk and he says that's all that matters.

She pays special attention to him the moment he brings up the inevitable, how he heard about her ordeal with William Lewis.

Tucker.

The odd visiting hours to her office, telling her to take exams, offering a drink, weren't a chance to get in her life finally, he was trying to tell her something else, but hesitating due to their tumultuous history and the fact he was responsible for Elliot leaving the force.

It all made sense now.

Elliot explains that Tucker was associated with someone in Elliot's branch of Humanitarian Assistance.

They'd let Tucker in on the little detail about Elliot being back in the country again and , that caused word to get to Elliot that his old partner had been held hostage and was recuperating nearby.

He says he wanted to come by. He had almost done it impulsively but he knew her, knew she would want to be left alone after something like that.

He says he did send a postcard from the Philippines on a whim, but seeing her reaction to that bit, he assumes it never made it to her.

"You did get my package right?" he inquires and she immediately assures him she did. The medallion is tucked inside her mother's bible inside her nightstand.

The badge clip is in storage with her old gun, in the evidence room somewhere. She hadn't felt right taking it home after what Lewis had done.

She'd never wanted to see anything she had on again from that time.

Maybe one day she'll change her mind, if only for just the tiny badge with the number that was everything that defined him, but also defined her.

... ... ...

"I just want you to want to be friends again. I'd give anything," he whispers as they sit on the bench, both watching their children play obliviously yards away.

She reaches for his lithe hand resting on his thigh then, picking it up with her smaller, colder fingers and doing something that is new for both of them.

She interlaces their fingers, his hand flexing gently in her grip as she lays the combined weight between them on the wooden bench.

She tells him, "I don't know if I'll ever understand, you thinking I wouldn't identify with how you were feeling. Or understand how you could have left everything. But I do know that your heart was in the right place. It's _always_ , in the right place."

"You know I'd never do something to intentionally make you distrust me."

Nodding, she looks away but tightens her grip on his hand.

"That's a given. But you sure know how to wound in the deepest, most inflictive ways without knowing it."

He stays silent, licking his lips and turning his head towards the sky, closing his eyes and grunting out his disapproval.

Not a disapproval of her admonishment of him, she knows that, but of the time, the distance, the things lost.

She squeezes his hand again and then let's go, standing up and stretching her back and her legs from the lengthy sit and conversation. All had been said and yet not said at all.

She then offers her hand, and the stubble on his jaw rises with the grin in place on his lips.

"I'm not an _invalid_ ," he raises one eyebrow, then lowers it as he sits forward, cane in hand and then he propels himself forward.

Straightening her own spine, she offers, "I _know._ Neither am I," and it comes out as a hushed verse within a rush of air and with his accompanying gaze, the intense stare that lasts only a few seconds, she knows that he knows. He understands.

That tether hadn't shattered completely, perhaps withered at the edges, but there's fortunately, still that unspoken understanding.

He calls the boys over to where they're standing, and Noah only hesitates briefly at the unknown man's voice. That's until he sees her sidle up next to Elliot, and give him a reassuring nod.

Perhaps, next time they meet, it'll be the time when she can bring herself to be open enough to tell Elliot that her son came not long after her fight with the unseen demons.

He can tell her the answers she's still floundering for. And then she can tell him off for not resting like he's supposed to.

As they walk away, he tells her that he's got to leave Brooklyn for a while, he's got more physical therapy still, but if she wants, they can meet in Manhattan again to talk. _If she wants._

She stays silent until they're both almost at their vehicles. Then she asks him how long he'll be gone.

Four months he says. Then he'll be home in mid-July.

Nodding, she picks Noah up and allows the boy to wraps his arms around her neck as she turns back to look at Elliot, Eli tucked against his side as they all glance back and forth between each other.

Olivia reaches for Eli and the nine year old smiles briefly before raising his smaller hand, allowing Olivia to hold it lightly while she speaks.

"It was nice seeing you again. You grew up on me."

Eli nods, confusion swirling slightly on his face as he glances up at this father, and Elliot nods toward the other little boy.

"Tell Noah, bye."

"Bye, Noah. Nice to meet you. Maybe we can play again."

"Of course," Olivia chimes in. "Soon." Glancing at Elliot, she reaches for his hand and gives it a light squeeze and he holds her hand in place a few moments, before smiling a tight lipped smile, then letting her hand go.

"I'm honored you let me meet him, Liv."

She nods, feeling the wetness prick at her eyelids, but it stays put and she readjusts Noah on her hip. All she can say is _yeah, me too. I'll see you later_ and then turns and walks away and he does the same.

She hears him talking to Eli but doesn't register the meaning of his words.

His timbre blends in with the sounds surrounding her as the late afternoon rolls in with the wind whipping around her and the unidentifiable sounds of nature take ahold of her and allow her to breathe.

She keeps walking, and passing by other cars, not caring how long it takes for them to reach hers.

Each passing moment, her eyes get blurrier and blurrier and she blames it on the wind.

But the feeling of Noah wrapping himself tighter around her own neck and torso, reminds of her the present.

She's alive.

She's living.

She's breathing and functioning and Noah is doing okay because of her.

She stops and looks over her shoulder and sees Elliot's Wrangler still parked along with his motionless form resting in the front driver seat.

Taking a deep breath, she turns back a few steps and watches his dark silhouette until his head raises.

He sits a few moments more, then finally rolls down the passenger window and catches her eyes, and even through the half rolled window, she can see the heaviness on his own shoulders, the weight of life pouring through him.

The regrets. Mistakes. Truth.

"I'm not packing anymore," she calls out to him. His lips rises a hair. "You can call sometime, I won't shoot you."

Turning his head toward the steering wheel in what seems like contemplation, he takes a few seconds, before looking in her direction again.

"I'll do that," he pushes out, with a grimace and she can tell he's in pain.

"Good," she offers. "Let me know what time we're having lunch in July, when you're back."

Nodding, he smiles. "You got it. By the way, I have some stories from Texas. Everything's bigger there."

Smiling, she clinches Noah to her and his head lolls against her shoulder as he slumbers, and glancing one last time at Elliot, she wills the tears to subside because the worst is over.

Time has passed and life is vain if we don't make something of it.

She's finally done what she's wanted to do for five long years. To just make sure he's okay.

He'd had his reasons for the disconnect. She hadn't had solid ones but reasons.

If his absence was her way of proving to herself, she could live without him, she can honestly, she survived but not unscathed.

It was the unknown of it all that had kept a deep dark place inside of her so apparent for so long.

He'd done the same and with life comes uncertainty.

Perhaps, they won't be as they were before but as she hears his engine turn over and the car pull out, she notices that the wind doesn't irritate her irises anymore.

Instead, it whips around her, clearing the hair from her face and ensconces she and her son like a protective blanket loosening as time finally marches forward again.

Finally, with fate in her own hand, she'd finally altered her current path into a revelation.

Paris, Texas. Elliot had mentioned the place.

Somehow, that dream makes sense.

And everyone continues to live their lives.

… …. …

 **4 Months Later**

They meet in a small park by Elliot's newer apartment in Brooklyn.

It goes as much the way it went the first time, minus the unwanted watering eye.

She asks him how much more physical therapy he has left.

 _Until I can walk without feeling like my hip is going to shoot out of my skin._

He tells her he'll be on restrictive desk duty as part of the reserves until he can walk better. Or he may just retire early. Though, it would wipe out the benefits Eli and the others could get once he reaches sixty and can retire honorably.

But he'll take things day by day.

She tells him it'll be worth it because with only two weeks out of the year and one weekend a month, it allows so much more time with Eli than he could have hoped for.

And the physical therapy, he tells her, he thinks it was a wake-up call for him. It was time for him to go back, he was missing out on his kids' lives, especially Eli's.

She tells him that she's proud of him.

It comes out in the middle of discussion. She hadn't planned to say it nor did she think she was ready to admit such declarations but it's true.

The part of her that tries to deny her non platonic feelings for him, tries to rationalize her words. But it's no use.

The moment washes over them, and he tells her, he feels like he did the right thing.

At first it stings. And quickly those declarations want to renege on her tongue but she waits and he continues, saying, it was her time to live her life without him.

That he wanted her to live, and that he cared far too much for her well-being than he ever did for himself.

He also says, it hadn't been the end of them anyways, because not everything had ended right.

She agrees.

If it hadn't been right how things ended between them, it _hadn't_ been the end.

It hadn't been the end of _them._

Feeling braver these days, because with a few years of therapy under her belt and too many missed opportunities lingering amidst the vanishing point in her life's portrait, taking his hand in hers doesn't feel so foreign anymore.

He takes a deep breath and lets her grasp his free hand in her own, this time, one hand intertwined with his and the other holding the back, grazing his worn, scarred knuckles.

"I thought of you when I was sure death was imminent, and I thought of you when I needed a friend. This was always going to happen. Always. You. Me. The sun in our faces and the past behind us. This was going to happen. We were going to see each other again."

He agrees with a squeeze of his hand against hers. He holds tight, scrunching his eyes closed and burying his face in his loose hand.

She doesn't think he's crying, but she doesn't bother with finding out, because the love in his emotions since meeting for the first time in five years, tells her everything she needs to know about _them._

"It was never the end for us. You're right," he pushes out.

After a few moments, they collect themselves, and she smiles a tight smile, breathes in as she catches sight of a little girl running toward her. It's when she feels that familial connection wash over her does she realize who it is.

Little Olivia runs as her short legs allow her and she picks her up and holds her in her lap as she turns toward Elliot.

"I have another surprise," she whispers with a glint in her eye she can assume.

Elliot's mouth turns to the side as he sees a clean shaven Simon and what he assumes is his girlfriend walk up the grass toward their seated forms on the bench.

His grins widens as he nods to Simon and then to Olivia as she holds her niece, patting her dark wavy hair.

Olivia can't stop grinning as she watches Elliot take in the scene. She busts out laughing when he says in a joking hush, "What is this, a family reunion?"

She grins back at him and sits Olivia down on the ground and kisses her forehead. "Maybe it is," she smiles. "Elliot, this is my niece Olivia."

His eyes leaves her and soften as he takes in mini Olivia. He seems surprised by the news, but he doesn't let it show too much.

She only knows because she doesn't take her eyes off of him, even when Simon gives her a hug from behind her position on the bench or when she says it's so good to see him again.

"Hey sweetheart," Elliot offers to the young one. "Nice to meet you," and as the little girl gives him a small smile in return, she turns to her father and asks to play on the jungle gym where Eli and Noah have been the past half hour or so.

Reunions. Family. Life.

It was about time they all started living it.

 _Finis._


End file.
